Apparently the Clippers are done with Marcin Gortat, because he started the game but didn’t the start the second half. Teams almost never change their starting lineups in between halves like that. Don’t come at me with the “b-b-but Gortat h-had four fouls!”. I don’t want to hear your excuses. Tell me, was Gortat able to stop Joel Embiid? No he wasn’t, and neither was Montrezl Harrell. Sometimes you just need to beef up the game with extra beefage, and Marjanovic was the man to do just that.
Embiid still ended up with 40, so it wasn’t a total success. Marjanovic did manage 15 in 22 minutes, which undid some of that, and the Clippers did make it close a few times before eventually succumbing to the Embeast.
Gortat has been fairly useless this year, at least from my perspective. Perhaps Clippers fans can chime in here and say he sets great screens or something. And that’s cool. Good screens are def better than bad screens. But you know what Marjanovic can do that Gortat can’t? Actually score the frickin’ rock.
And dunk without jumping.